Kinah

Kinah

2015

In December 2015 the world premiere performance of Slatkin’s Kinah was met with favorable reviews, with critics remarking on its eloquence, poignancy, and evocative use of percussion and strings. Slatkin wrote the piece as an elegy to his late parents, Felix Slatkin and Eleanor Aller of the Hollywood String Quartet, to mark the 100th anniversary of his father’s birth. For the premiere, Slatkin’s brother, Frederick Zlotkin, played the offstage cello solos on the instrument that once belonged to their mother. The piece incorporates themes from the slow movement of the Brahms Double Concerto, which Slatkin’s parents were scheduled to perform together for the first time when Felix died of a heart attack at the age of 47.